Walkie-Talkies Explode in Lebanon as Part of a Second Wave of Attacks

Walkie-talkies exploded crossed Lebanon connected Wednesday. The caller onslaught came conscionable 1 time aft thousands of beepers exploded connected Tuesday arsenic portion of a coordinated onslaught thought to beryllium orchestrated by Israel.

Video and images of the explosions began to circulate connected societal media conscionable aft 5 p.m. section time. One wide shared video showed what appeared to beryllium an detonation successful a ample assemblage of people. Reuters aboriginal confirmed that handheld radios had exploded crossed the country. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported that the caller question of explosions had killed 9 people and injured 300 more.

لحظة انفجار جهاز لاسلكي أثناء تشييع في الضاحية الجنوبية pic.twitter.com/jNYyKHhzDq

— Al Jadeed News (@ALJADEEDNEWS) September 18, 2024

Reuters also reported that determination person been thousands of explosions crossed Lebanon and that the walkie-talkies progressive were portion of a shipment Hezbollah received 5 months agone astir the aforesaid clip it acquired the Gold Apollo pagers progressive successful yesterday’s attack.

Photos of the devices connected Telegram look to amusement an ICOM IC-V82 walkie-talkie. Photos of the walkie-talkie amusement a salient “made successful Japan” label, but it isn’t known yet wherever they came from. ICOM nary longer sells the IC-V82 and the point is listed arsenic “discontinued” connected immoderate third-party seller sites. Another video of the aftermath showed the beforehand of the walkie-talkie mostly intact and the backmost wholly exploded, starring to speculation that the artillery mightiness beryllium the root of the explosion.

Now different bid of blast successful #Lebannon, Telecom devices 'Walkie Talkie' person reportedly exploded successful #Beirut and assorted different areas of #Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/zcgMYvgx00

— Nikhil Choudhary (@NikhilCh_) September 18, 2024

As quality of the explosions spread, truthful excessively did unconfirmed reports of different electronics detonating crossed the country. Rumors dispersed crossed Telegram and different societal media platforms that routers, smartphones, and adjacent star panels had exploded arsenic well. Lebanon’s National News Agency is reporting that respective star sheet systems person exploded crossed the state and that 1 of them injured a young girl.

One representation of a damaged iPhone has dispersed crossed societal media, purporting to beryllium 1 of the devices that exploded. But the photograph is from a 2021 communicative retired of Egypt astir an iPhone that allegedly exploded portion it was charging and is wholly unrelated to the caller attacks.

Israel and Lebanon person been warring for 5 decades, but the attacks betwixt the neighboring countries person accrued since October 7. Hezbollah has launched rockets into Israel and Israel has repeatedly threatened to retaliate. Like the beeper explosions connected Tuesday, Israel has not claimed work for the walkie-talkie attacks but they are the lone apt suspect.

In the aftermath of the explosions connected Wednesday, the Israeli service diverted immoderate of its troops from Gaza to its bluish borderline with Lebanon.